


An Unannounced Arrival

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Hawke in Dragon Age: Inquisition, Reunions, Skyhold (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: He’d sent word to Hawke the moment they’d settled into Skyhold. It had been an entire week since he’d been able to find a surface flat enough to pen the letter, an entire week since he’d held his breath and said a silent little prayer to himself, an entire week. And he’d heard nothing from her.Until today.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Varric Tethras, Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	An Unannounced Arrival

Skyhold was a mad flurry of movement everywhere you looked. Each day brought a new wave of people to its gates, filling the courtyard with voices—merchants doing what they could do outfit the displaced, soldiers barking orders to impromptu trainees, citizens simply trying to find their way around a new way of life and living, all of them abuzz but none of them able to shake the lingering fear that the tragedy of Haven was due for a reprise.

Varric saw that and more, his mind processing it in the distant way it always handled imagery he could weave into words later, but that day, his thoughts weren’t with the people of Skyhold. Hell, they weren’t even with the Inquisition. He kept trying to rein them in, to focus on the world unfurling itself from the ancient abandoned castle like a sleep-stale tongue; for a few moments at a time it would stick, and then, like clockwork, he’d find himself off in an entirely different place again, one where he could smell the sea and the far-off scent of corroding bronzework, one crowned in unforgiving angles and the mournful faces of old Tevinter statues. 

He’d sent word to Hawke the moment they’d settled into Skyhold. It had been an entire week since he’d been able to find a surface flat enough to pen the letter, an entire week since he’d held his breath and said a silent little prayer to himself, an entire _week_. And he’d heard nothing from her.

“‘Ey, Tethras. The one with all the books, aye?”

It hadn’t only been his _mind_ that had been wandering, it seemed. He blinked himself out of his reverie and glanced about, trying to pinpoint what part of the courtyard his feet had taken him too, but…well, most of them were still in the cottony haze of learning the ins and outs of their new surroundings. All of Skyhold looked alike to him—broken bricks, climbing ivy, dust, frost. The only thing out of place was _her_.

When he turned to the source of the voice, he was greeted by the sight of a human woman sitting none-too-distantly from him, perched happily as could be atop the crumbled ruin of what must’ve been a battlement, once upon a time. She wore the heavy oiled skins that marked her an Avvar, a fur-lined hood drawn up and over her head to obscure the better part of her face. He could make out a few smears of what he assumed to be the camouflaging paint they were so fond of on her chin and cheeks, but save for that everything else was veiled in shadow.

That was the first thing to sound an alarm bell for him. Everything about it felt intentional. _Effortful_ , even. He tried to recall whether he’d met any of the scant few Avvar among their number during the grueling trek from Haven and found himself coming up dry.

“Well I guess that depends on whether you’re looking for an autograph.” He spoke as coolly and jovially as he could, considering he’d only just then noticed how very empty that part of the courtyard was. For all intents and purposes, it was just the two of them, him and the Avvar woman, and it occurred to him that no part of that could be coincidence. Had she been following him as he wandered the grounds? She must’ve been. He couldn’t see any weapons on her person, but he wasn’t fool enough to let himself believe that meant she wasn’t armed—one didn’t live in Kirkwall without learning that particular lesson.

For her part, though, the Avvar simply continued to sit, one of her legs swinging like a pendulum. Every so often a remnant of the battlement would catch and roll under her thick leather boot, crunching before being rolled deeper into the dirt. “You did _Tale of the Champion_ ,” she continued, speaking in the burred, heavy affectation so many of the highlanders had. The lower half of her face changed, pulling into what he could only assume was a smile from the sliver of lip he could see. “Shite story, that.”

He raised his shoulders in a shrug, reassured by Bianca’s familiar weight. “Everyone’s a critic.” She wasn’t dressed like one of their hunters, and that was good; if push came to shove and he had to put distance between them, he thought the coarse leather of her breeches and gaiters would put her at a distinct disadvantage.

Something about her wasn’t sitting well, and it wasn’t just her opinion of his writing. No, there was something distinctly… _off_. The way she was sitting, maybe, or the shape of her words. That had to be it. The details were subtle, almost unnoticeable, but _wrong_.

“How do you call someone like _that_ a _Champion?_ ” If she suspected any part of his mental cataloguing, she showed no sign. All she did was lean backwards for a moment, resting her shoulders against another shard of the ruin, her leg ticking away the seconds. “You lowlanders have a strange way of thinking about things if _that’s_ your idea of a _Champion_.”

Had anyone else said something like that to his face, Varric would’ve bristled at the very least. There would’ve been _words_ —sharp ones, and a lot of them—defensive snaps couched in snide jokes and wry smiles. But he couldn’t bring himself to do any of that just then.

The sense of something being wrong had flip-flopped into something else entirely. He couldn’t put his finger on when or even why it had happened, but happened it had, and all the tics that had made him wary before were now making him dizzy with a sentiment he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for so, so long: Hope.

With a heave of her arms, the Avvar hopped down from her seat, taking a moment to pull and fuss at the sides of her oiled skins. “Champions,” she continued, the brogue growing weaker, less convincing, more _familiar_ , “Don’t usually flutter off into the sunset when the city they’re meant to protect falls to shit.” She sighed and reached up, fingers sliding underneath the fur lining of her hood, “ _Champions_ don’t run away to leave their best friend behind. No matter _how_ much he insists.” And then the hood was down.

He saw the streaks of camouflaging paint he’d expected, saw the way it cracked and chipped as her mouth pulled into a smirk, saw the swipe of what could’ve been blood but just as easily could’ve been kaddis across the bridge of her nose, saw the way time had thought it fit to pepper in some of her mother’s grey at her temples since they’d been forced to part.

Hawke dropped the act as quickly as she’d dropped her hood, and when she pulled in her next breath, he couldn’t miss the way her chest seemed to hitch with the effort of it. “Hello,” she said finally, more a whisper than anything else, the sort of voice she was known to use when afraid it would break.

And all at once the remoteness of the area they’d found themselves tucked away into seemed a blessing instead of a curse, because silver tongue or no, there would’ve been no way for him to talk his way around the way he swept her into his arms, caught somewhere between holding tightly enough to reassure himself she was really, truly there, and not wanting to aggravate any hidden injuries she might’ve sustained during her travels. There _certainly_ wouldn’t have been a way to joke around the way she took his face in her hands and kissed him until they were both dizzy with elation and relief. He’d _have_ to explain those things eventually, he knew—first to the Inquisitor and then the others, and though the prospect of revealing his lies to the Seeker wasn’t an especially tempting one, he knew he’d be able to do it once he had time enough to sit and piece together his words.

But that would all come later. For now, the only thing that mattered was _Hawke_ , the weight of her in his arms, the feel of her grinning into their kiss, the days and weeks and months and miles separating them crumbling into dust like the battlement he’d found her sitting on.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!! If you've read any of my other stuff, you've probably noticed that I'm not usually in the habit of posting this frequently! (Sure wish I was.)
> 
> All this month, I'm taking part of a writing challenge with a few of my writing buds where we try to write a drabble a day! I'm posting ALL of my daily drabbles on tumblr (where you can find me as queenofbaws) in the "Queenie writes challenge stuff" tag, but I'm going to be cherrypicking one or two to put up here on AO3 too every few days. I'm trying super, super hard to make all my daily drabbles fluffy and fun (and probably shippy, lol) because I know shit's hard right now and a lot of you guys are probably looking for some kind of distraction, so don't you worry about finding any doom, gloom, or super intense emotional stuff if you go picking through that tag - I think we've all got enough of that shit right now.
> 
> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this (and my unnecessarily long author's notes ;P), and I really, truly hope all of you are healthy, safe, and well <3


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